Posted by
Edmond Long on Wednesday, February 25, 2009 12:24:11 PM
Unfortunately, “safe-sex” advice of the sort Dr. Elders gave does not lead to responsible action among teens. Instead of lowering the bar of teens behavior, by the way, the bar should be raised. When challenged to excel, most people try harder. When a challenge is absent, behavior tends to drop to the lowest level. If we do not challenge young people to commit themselves to higher standards of conduct, why should we be surprised when they act on momentary feelings? Teens should not be expected to act as adults do, or as adults should be acting. Most teens do not understand the concept of long-term consequences. If they did, risky behavior among teens would be much lower. Yet, binge drinking and sexual excess on Spring Break remain a problem.
Sex is normal. We have been designed as sexual beings. Why, then, does a normal thing produce such bad consequences? When a good thing, sex, is abused and misused, only bad consequences result. Abusive sex degrades; healthy sex ennobles. For sex to be healthy, it must be experienced in its proper context. That context is heterosexual marriage. In any other circumstance, sex loses its overriding and most important purpose: procreation. Outside marriage, sex is fundamentally a selfish activity. The negative emotional consequences, as reported in the UNC-CH study, shows clearly sex has a proper context.
For a woman, sexual intercourse is one of the most intimate experiences of her life. Yet, when a woman becomes a sexual object for a man, the sexual experiences becomes dehumanizing and degrading. To be an object of another’s pursuit of pleasure means one has lost their fundamental identity and personhood. Adultery, teen sex, homosexuality, and abusive sex in marriage all are acts of selfishness, self-absorption, and self-centeredness. In all contexts other than marriage, sex is primarily recreational, in that the experience serves as a means of sensual satisfaction. How can a person profess to love and care for another yet use that person as a tool for gratification of one’s desire for pleasure? Such sexual activity is destructive, humiliating, and degrading.
In marriage (only heterosexuals truly can be married), sex is a healthy activity (abusive sex in marriage does not negate the ideal). Heterosexual intercourse elevates because of the purpose for which it exists. For married couples, even when pregnancy is not intended, sexual intercourse is defined above all other issues by its procreative purpose. A husband and wife instinctively know what they are doing is more than recreational. The act serves to bind the couple by a deeply intimate act in their relationship as husband and wife.
Ideally, sex in marriage is a time of self-giving. For a married couple, irresponsible and selfish sex hurts the relationship. For that reason, sexual infidelity most times destroys a marriage. Selfishness in sex, even within the marriage context, erodes intimacy and hinders the growth of the relationship between a husband and wife. Adultery leads to a loss of trust because adultery is a betrayal of intimacy and love. Once lost, the trust and intimacy may never be recovered, and if it is, the level of trust enjoyed before betrayal will never be known again.
Among teens, sexual faithfulness is not even an issue. Sex for teens is all about pleasure, especially for males. As a means of binding a couple in a long-term relationship, sex among teens fails miserably. Teen girls may hope for deeper intimacy with their partners, and they might dream of staying with their boyfriends for life, but the facts betray this hope as a fantasy. The reference above to the UNC-CH study illustrates the terrible toll for teens, especially girls, when they are sexually active. Further, other studies have shown the more one is sexually active, the harder for that person to sustain a long-term relationship. Casual sex leads to a series of short-term relationships.